Elon Musk has been involved in the debate over Ricky Gervais’ new stand-up special.
Last week, the creator of The Office released his new special SuperNature, which faced criticism for jokes aimed at transgender people. At the time, the LGBTQ + GLAAD advocacy organization condemned her as a “dangerous, anti-transgressor disguised as a joke.”
On Sunday, The Atlantic writer Conor Friedersdorf tweeted a screenshot of review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes highlighting the disparity between SuperNature’s critical ratings and audience ratings. The special has a 14% overall rating with the critics, but 92% with the public.
“The decoupling of critical and audience scores for standup specials is something to watch out for,” Friedersdorf tweeted.
In response to the tweet, Tesla CEO Musk wrote: “The ‘critics’ are not looking to make a critique, but a sign of virtue. They are not in touch with the people and they are losing their credibility with the people.”
In his two-star SuperNature review for The Independent, critic Nick Hilton wrote: “As is too common these days, the longest riff is reserved for the humiliation of trans people. ‘ ‘ [Gervais] reveals towards the end of the show, “in real life, of course, I support trans rights.”
“At this point there is a bit of applause from the naive few in the audience who think the irony is real, but that’s nothing compared to the roar of laughter and applause when the punchline arrives, a big joke about surgery. gender affirmation “.
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Gervais recently defended his use of “taboo” jokes while appearing on The One Show to promote his special.
“I think that’s really what comedy is all about, making us go through things and, ideally, taboo subjects, because I want to take the audience to a place where it hasn’t been before, not even for a split second,” he said.
“It’s like a parachute jump. It’s scary, but then you land and it’s all right. And that’s what comedy is all about, making us go through taboo subjects. They are no longer afraid. So I take care of everything. “
Following the release of SuperNature, a clip resurfaced online from James Acaster’s 2019 special, Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999, in which he points to comics that spend much of their sets “getting transgender people.”
“I used to call it one of the comics that talked about that routine, but it was always very uncomfortable in the room because, apparently, in 2019 most people are still more than happy to laugh at trans people, but they don’t feel comfortable laughing. Ricky Gervais still. That’s the line, “he jokes.